SSD

[BigJay]

So whats the word on Solid State Drives?

I've had lots of issues over the last couple of months with my HD, boot issues etc, so thinking of a SSD to hopefully alleviate further issues.

 

[Quadophile]

SSD's are coming down in price and getting bigger in size day by day. , Even if you get the SSD now you would still need the normal HDD for storage and back-up. Some of the top HDD's are not far behind in terms of speed compared to SSD's as I was reading reviews of them just a few days ago. Seagate Momentus scored very highly in those test and head to head with the SSD.

There are many brands out there and some are good and some not. Before you jump in do read the reviews and see what is suitable for you at this stage.

 

[muckshifter]

If you don't need to copy gigabytes of data quickly or load games in the blink of an eye, then there's nothing wrong with sticking with a mechanical hard drive.

There are some 'new kids' knocking around but my money would probably still go to Samsung.


Oh, may I just say ... SATA Express ... just thought I'd throw that in.

 

[BigJay]

Thanks guys.
Should a SSD drive be more reliable that a HDD?
I seem to have had my fair share of HDD failures and issues in the past and I've always bought decent drives, so reliability is now paramount.
I want to stick my OS only, onto the most stable drive possible. I don't mind paying a 'fair' price for this piece of mind.
At the mo, I have a 1TB internal HD, which is partitioned, but this is the HD that my 'old' OS was installed on. I had to do a fresh install of W7 after a MBR(I think) issue. After the fresh install and many hours updating and re-installing stuff, all seemed ok.
Checked my msconfig and found only 1 boot option.

A few days later, more MBR issues. I was advised to open up the case, checked all connections.
I did, rebooted and the system open up with my old OS?????
Then two days ago, my PC froze while playing a game, I was forced to reboot.

Black boot screen came up with two boot options and both are my new OS? no sign of my old one?

I also have an external HD which I back all my essential gear onto.

Computers, the source of and answer too, many of life's headaches.

 

[muckshifter]

reliability ??

The most reliable hard drive is ... whatever outlasts the last one.


YMMV

 

[BigJay]

reliability ??

The most reliable hard drive is ... whatever outlasts the last one.


YMMV

I know mate!

I don't know if SSD are supposed to be more reliable or just quicker than a HDD?

Am I better having my OS on it's own drive, or on a partitioned drive? Does it matter?

Does it sound like my existing HDD is on its way out? if so, then a SSD may be out of the question due to cost. So, OS on smallish SSD and buy a new HDD in case of disaster?

So many questions

 

[muckshifter]

I don't know if SSD are supposed to be more reliable or just quicker than a HDD?

Listening to the 'sales pitch' of manufacturers you would be led to believe they were more reliable ... one fact, however, puts me off, a limited life over use.

Am I better having my OS on it's own drive, or on a partitioned drive? Does it matter?

With todays OS I would personally say no ... in a works environment I would have the OS on a seperate partition, in the days of XP & before, it would save a lot of bother reinstalling and keeping your existing 'stuff' separate. Then one would/should have a reliable backup service in place if data is that important.

Does it sound like my existing HDD is on its way out?

seems a likely scenario as I have experience similar 'peculiarities' of a my last HD. No MBR, but an occasional "no OS" ie not seeing HD, and silly game crashes I blamed on the game ... did indeed turn out to be a slow failing HD. I did a post on it somewhere.

if so, then a SSD may be out of the question due to cost. So, OS on smallish SSD and buy a new HDD in case of disaster?

I bought a new HD, they are quite cheap, even for a SATA revision 3.0 - 6 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s one.

For me, I can't afford an SSD, I would love to try one, but a little out of my pocket. It would be a Samsung.

 

[Quadophile]

I certainly do not want to sound negative here but to be honest, all these years I have been tinkering with the computer, I have to say "reliability" has always been a question mark. No matter how expensive or cheap a component or peripheral may be there are no guarantees whatsoever.

The only word that comes to mind to effectively deal with reliability issue is "BACKUP" A close second to backup would again be "BACKUP"

 

[V_R]

Ive had an SSD in my home PC since i built it, (October '09) its been rock solid and a great upgrade.

October '09....! Surely thats time for an upgrade!

 

[BigJay]

Is is possible to set up a pc with 2 hd's and have software that backs-up automatically, so if one hd fails, the second can kick in without disruption?

Obviously, the pain of having to update and re-install all my software after a OS re-install, is all to prevalent at the mo!

 

[Ian]

I'm a big fan of SSDs - it's made the biggest speed improvement to my PC compared to any other upgrade. The Samsung 840 looks like a very good buy.

October '09....! Surely thats time for an upgrade!

That must be the oldest thing in your PC!

Is is possible to set up a pc with 2 hd's and have software that backs-up automatically, so if one hd fails, the second can kick in without disruption?

Obviously, the pain of having to update and re-install all my software after a OS re-install, is all to prevalent at the mo!

You could go for a RAID 1 setup, so that all of your information is stored on a pair of drives... however it would be expensive to do this with SSDs and it isn't suitable as a backup, just for redundancy. For example, a virus or accidental deletion would equally effect both drives - but it would guard against drive failure.

You could go for a SSD as your primary drive, so the OS and any of your main Apps are on there. Then, get a cheaper secondary SATA drive and just do an incremental backup each week. That way you've got the best of both worlds . I do this with Acronis True Image (think it was about £20 on offer) and it works very well indeed - I've rolled back to an existing backup a couple of times now.

 

[floppybootstomp]

From my experience, reading and opinion, I'd say an SSD is more reliable than a mechanical device. A mechanical hard drive is just that - mechanical, and all mechanical devices are subject to wear and tear. The internal disk platters revolve at a high speed whilst the read head is constantly jumping backwards and forwards to locate data. That not only induces wear, it takes time.

An SSD just changes the state of silicon between 0 & 1. Figure it out.

However, SSD drives won't last forever, there's only so many times you can switch electrons from positive to negative and back again before they too will fail.

It's my opinion that the reliability of hard drives is pure pot luck, it does not depend on brand but of quality of construction, in other words - where it's made. And all hard disk manufacturers use a series of factories.. A month ago I had two Samsung hard drives fail on me, a 250Gb 10 year old device and a 4 year old 320Gb disk. I also still have a perfectly functioning IBM Deskstar from 1998 which almost defies logic. Granted, it hasn't been used for at least six years but I still think that's quite remarkable.

As Ian said, you could have a pair of 120Gb SSD's in a RAID 1, pricey perhaps, but peace of mind. However, that will only guarantee the recovery of a failed disk, it obviously won't protect against a corrupt OS.

I've been running my machine << see specs, for around 18 months now with Windows 7 on an SSD and a series of mechanical disks for data. See attached pic for my setup, disk titlkes are, I think, self-explanatory.

When buying an SSD go for the ones with the faster speed, they cost a little more but they're worth it.

EDIT/PS: I also use Acronis True Image to back up the OS to a storage disk, it's saved my bacon a few times, that's for sure. And I've now attached the pic

 

[V_R]

That must be the oldest thing in your PC!

Believe it or not my MB, CPU and RAM are all from that same date! Basically, the performance boost from upgrading is frankly not a lot more for the price it will cost, and its not like this is struggling with anything at the moment...

I'm waiting to see what Haswell brings......

What Flops said is the truth, I'd agree with that. Though i'd be more interested in whats causing you to have these issues in the first place, sounds like some things killing the drives?

 

[BigJay]

Though i'd be more interested in whats causing you to have these issues in the first place, sounds like some things killing the drives?

So would I, but just being confident in my HD is more important. If the easy way is to buy new, I'll just do that.
Unless the cause is not my HD....ow, now my head hurts. Why can't someone invent a computer with only 1 or 2 moving parts, that would make things so much easier.

I'm looking at a few, like the Western Digital Caviar Black Hard Drive 1TB - 64MB as it comes with a 5yr limited warranty(?, yet to be scrutinised).
I'll have a look at the Samsung options tomorrow.....just to keep Mucks off my back!

 

[V_R]

I have two WD blacks (1x 1Tb and 1x 500Gb) in this PC, cant fault them..

 

[BigJay]

Update...... note, MSCONFIG showed just 1 os when last checked a couple of days ago.....

After three weeks of using my newly installed os, I've backed up all of my files and pics, ect, with a plan to purchase and fit new hd as soon as money becomes available......last night, blue screen of death, re boot, it asks and then runs CHKDSK, freezes @stage 3 and 73%.
I rebooted, ran CHKDSK again, same result.

I rebooted and canceled CHKDSK, pc boots with old os!......the os that has been missing for nearly a month and no signs of the new os when I run MSCONFIG?.
Not the end of the world, but did have some documents on my old os desktop which I can't now access.

It's a funny old world.